Election a ‘referendum on tax’ - Abbott

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says the upcoming federal election will be a referendum on tax.

Speaking after the government announced its 40 per cent mining super profits tax would be replaced with a 30 per cent minerals resource rent tax, Mr Abbott said the battlelines had been drawn and the alternatives were sharp and clear.

"Labor supports a great big new tax on mining - the coalition doesn't," he told reporters in Sydney.

"It's as simple as that."

Labor needed a tax because it had turned a $20 billion budget surplus into a $57 billion deficit, Mr Abbott said.

"The opposition will oppose the new minerals tax," he said.

"We will oppose it in opposition and we will rescind it in government."

Mr Abbott welcomed the pending election “as a referendum on tax” and said the mining industry had got “the best deal from a bad government”.

“The miners were effectively negotiating with a gun at their heads, and that’s not a situation they should ever have been put into,” he said, adding the new deal would still hit the industry hard.

“This is still a tax grab rather than tax reform ... a $12 billion tax grab has been replaced with a $10.5 billion tax grab.”

Mr Abbott also criticised the government for not consulting widely enough.

“It was discussed between the government and three big companies,” he said.

“There are about 300 other companies that it wasn’t discussed with and you shouldn’t make any assumptions as to whether they are happy with it.”

Mr Abbott called on the government to release the modelling of both schemes to justify its figures.

“It’s difficult to see... how the original tax could raise $12 billion and how the new tax could raise $10.5 billion given the changes.”

Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey said the new tax would deter companies thinking of investing in Australia’s resources.

“Not only have they got the most complicated taxation regime in the world, but now they have a new tax that is going to raise at least $10.5 billion dollars that is going to have to be paid,” he said in Sydney.